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The love of guns in the United States has been well documented, as have multiple mass shootings across the country such as those in Orlando, San Bernardino, Newtown, and Virginia. The ease of access to guns in American society comes at a shocking cost.
As of September 2016, almost 11,000 people have been killed as a result of gun violence. Despite this high death toll, mass shootings in America show no sign of disappearing.
The Stateside obsession with guns can appear baffling to UK observers unfamiliar with its origins. So just how did this gun culture become so deep-rooted in the American psyche?
BBC source: Why Are Americans so Obsessed with Guns?
Wikipedia: Gun politics in the United States
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Why Are Americans So Obsessed With Guns?
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poverty, n.:
An unfortunate state that persists as long
as anyone lacks anything he would like to have.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:20AM
Hey, dumbass, "ad hominem" is an UNSUBSTANTIATED attack ON THE PERSON, not the argument. Not only was "wow, you basically just got drunk and hung out the window and shouted "eeeeeEEEEEEeeeeyyynigganigganigga!" for 5 minutes straight" an attack on his argument, not him, it was also *entirely* on the mark.
You don't know what words mean, do you?
And contrary to "racist" becoming meaningless, this shitshow of an election has made it more topical and urgent than ever. When the goddamn KKK is supporting your rallies, when your chief strategist is basically David Duke in plainclothes dress, you have a racism problem. Fuck you for trying to silence the people pointing this out, and may you fry in hell for your part in the coming collapse of this nation.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:28AM
Blame your SJW allies if you must. "Racist" is attached to the person now, and because it's ALWAYS attached to a person a special snowflake SJW (and allies) disagrees with, it is now a meaningless term, devoid of useful definition.
It is sad, in a way, but you brought this situation on yourselves, much like with Trump getting in because the The Other Side of the Same Coin demanded that it was Hillary's turn. You pushed so hard that the blowback blew you out of the water.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 10 2017, @04:22AM
So if I understand you right, insulting someone at any point in any way during an argument makes that argument null and void, no? Looks like all the "special snowflakes" won this round then :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @07:01AM
Winning sure does feel good, doesn't it?
Hm - that actually sounds familiar...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:47PM
a racism problem
What is that exactly? The problem, specifically.
So the original problem is some loose rambling about Americans shocking cost of easy gun access, which actually isn't all that much of a cost for a 320 million person nation, seeing as its like 1/4 the cost of suicides or well under a tenth the cause of generic accidents (slip and fall) and with well over 2.5 million deaths per year total, guns are a microscopic fraction of a percent basically not worth worrying about. 11K deaths per year sounds like a lot if you live in the UK where a big town is like 500 people or even 11K shootings in London would be kinda noteworthy, but the BBC has to face facts that "the colonies" have expanded slightly since the revolutionary war and we're now a modest integer multiple of the population of the old home island... So it would be like freaking out about 1000 knife deaths in the entire UK, interestingly enough the UK does score a bit less than 1K murders per year... You're almost certain to die from eating too much carbs and not exercising too much with a side dish of cancer from environmental exposure to various chemicals, or from drinking booze, or in a car accident, but not from a gun.
The reason to ban guns is purely political, not practical and not for safety reasons. Also massive progressive signaling points by claiming support.
I proposed that effective gun control could take race into account, the only really useful response pointed out that their statistical samples imply a moderately better correlation with income, which is basically a stealth race measurement so whatever. Either way you slice it, a rifle in a white $75K/yr deer hunters hands in the hunting woods is harmless to society and a pistol in a black $0/yr hands in the inner city is going to fill coffins, and regulation should respect those outcomes.
So anyway, what exactly is the problem?
Fuck you for trying to silence the people pointing this out
Speak up, here's your podium.... Try something deeper than "I'm a better person for pointing out its a thoughtcrime double plus ungood". How about in the spirit of a physics thought experiment, if either what I'm suggesting or you're imagining or a mix of both is implemented, then the result will be ... um ...
in the coming collapse of this nation
Historically either what I'm actually talking about, or what you're signalling against because you're holier than I am, and those two topics may or may not have much if anything in common, regardless it has never been a nation or civilization ending problem. Civilizations have fallen for a lot of reasons, but not that. Either way, it sounds very "sky is falling". Better to worry about gun control or global warming or ozone holes or Russian hacking or whatever other imaginary boogeymen and things the go bump in the night. Or bad diet, lack of exercise, chemical contaminants, smoking, etc.